Question

  A quote from column 36:
  \”A few years ago I saw a performance by Rabbi-actor Haggai Luber, after which there was a discussion about the phenomenon of going secular. In the discussion he said that as part of his work as an instructor at the Ofra Midrasha, he has been witnessing a very rapid change in the character of the activity. A few years ago, he said, we would all sit around the campfire with groups of teenagers who came to the midrasha, and there was tension in the air. Would I manage to prove to them that there is a God, and then everyone would be careful about every last commandment, go to yeshivot, and dedicate their lives to Torah, or not—and then of course everyone would leave the yeshivot and girls’ religious seminaries, and already the coming Sabbath they would all go together to the beach instead of the synagogue. A few years later, they sit around the same campfire and the instructor (=Luber) states that there is a God. Everyone nods in agreement. After that he argues that He was revealed at Mount Sinai and gave the Torah. The nodding continues there too. Then he states firmly that divine commands are binding and everyone must obey them. To his amazement, the nodding still does not stop. At this point he gets stuck and asks the teenagers in the group, so what’s the problem? Where are we stuck? Here he gets a typical response, given with Olympic calm, something like: “It doesn’t suit us right now” (we don’t connect to it). He feels helpless, because his arsenal of arguments is of no use here. He can prove with signs and wonders that there is a God who gave the Torah and that it is binding—it will not change a thing. This generation rudely ignores logical considerations. It does not place much trust in them, and prefers emotion and existential feelings instead.\”
 
What would you do (or what do you do) in cases like these? Thanks.